Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an editorial that originally appeared in the Jan. 1 print edition.

By the time you read this, the United States will have officially gone over the so-called fiscal cliff — though it may be a very brief plunge.

While the Senate early Tuesday passed a small compromise, the House essentially said “enough,” announcing Monday that they would not vote on any measure in advance of the deadline for the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts.

The deal hammered out between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden crossed the finish line in the Senate shortly after we ran in 2013, though it’s unclear when it will pass the Republican-controlled House.

What’s become abundantly clear is that the 112th Congress missed the opportunity to enact a bigger deal that would have been an economic shot in the arm to a country that is still trying to get back on its feet after the collapse of 2008. In a press conference at the White House on Monday, President Barack Obama said he had hoped to pull off the larger “grand bargain,” but that it wasn’t meant to be.

“With this Congress, that was obviously a little too much to hope for at this time,” he said. “Maybe we can do this in stages. We can solve this problem instead in several steps.”

Perhaps. But it’s hard to envision a better opportunity for a large-scale effort to rein in the federal budget than the combination of tax increases, mandatory spending cuts and expiration of other benefits that made up the cliff. Given an opportunity to do something big, Congress had trouble even crafting a deal that scratched the surface.

The votes of Colorado’s Democratic Senators offer a contrast in views on addressing the larger budget picture.

Sen. Michael Bennet, who was one of just eight no votes, deserves credit for standing on principle for a bigger deal.

“While I do support many of the items in this proposal — for example, extending unemployment insurance, the wind production tax credit and tax cuts for most Americans — I believe they should have come in the context of a comprehensive deficit reduction package,” he said in a release. ” Without a serious mechanism to reduce the debt, I cannot support this bill.”

Mark Udall, on the other hand, leaves us perplexed.

“This is not the deal I would have written, but we cannot ignore the need to protect taxpayers, businesses and our fragile economy from the destructive effects of the fiscal cliff,” he said in a release. “When Congress reconvenes in 2013, I will continue to push for a bipartisan deal on the deficit that grows our economy and responsibly reforms the federal government.”

So, the Senator who is fond of criticizing efforts that “kick the can down the road” voted to do just that.

According to Politico, the deal reportedly includes increasing tax rates to 39.6 percent on individuals who earn more than $400,000, permanently patching the Alternative Minimum Tax, raising the estate tax rates for high-value properties, extending unemployment benefits for a year, continuing several middle-class tax cuts for five years and add a temporary fix to Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors.

Senators agreed to defer for two months $110 billion in mandatory sequestration cuts.

But the deal doesn’t even glance at entitlement spending, which is a trickier problem and a larger driver of budget deficits.

Since we’ve taken at least a partial plunge off the cliff, it’s not unreasonable to consider what’s next.

Is the small-scale patch worked out in the Senate the right step? Or would the country be better off taking this moment to figure out a way to finally address the larger issue of federal spending with everything — tax rates, spending cuts, credits, etc. — still on the table?

Many were not surprised by the prompt verdict Monday in the sexual-assault case in Denver involving Taylor Swift. A jury of six women and two men concluded within hours that a Denver radio host had groped Swift _ grabbed her butt beneath her skirt during a photo shoot, as his wife stood on the other side of Swift.

Touch not that statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville. Let it stand, but around it place plaques telling the curious that the man was a traitor to his country who went to war so white people could continue to own black people.